


Choices

by JCapasso



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24654436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: What if Elena had made the right choice before she became a vampire?Starts from 3x22
Relationships: Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore
Comments: 7
Kudos: 43





	1. Chapter 1

As soon as Elena got the call about Klaus’ death, she knew what she had to do. What she should have done a long time ago. She couldn’t put it off anymore. She told Matt to turn around, back towards Mystic Falls, but pulled out her phone to call Damon. 

Damon smiled as he saw her name on the caller id and answered. “Let me guess. Calling to see if the grim reaper’s paid a visit?”

“How are you feeling? Any symptoms?” Elena asked worriedly. 

“Not yet. But I’m sure we’ll have a laugh when we find out that Klaus is a big fat liar,” Damon said trying to keep things light. 

“Yeah. I-I’m sure we will,” Elena said, appreciating his effort, but it wasn’t really working. 

“Hey where are you?” he asked curiously. 

There was a long pause before Elena said, “Matt’s taking me home.”

“To Stefan,” Damon sighed, trying to keep the hurt out of his voice. 

“Not…just to Stefan, Damon. To…to Tyler. To Caroline,” she assured him. Too many people to say goodbye to on that side. 

“No, I get it,” Damon said, trying to keep his heart from breaking. He’d known her choice all along. It didn’t make it any easier though. He knew that he should just leave well enough alone, but couldn’t resist being sure. As much as part of him wanted to die with hope, he just had to know the truth. “So…since I’m possibly a dead man…can I ask you a question?” 

“Yeah, of course,” Elena nodded, trying to keep her tears back for the moment. She would let him say or ask anything he wanted before she got to the reason for her call. 

“If it was down to just him and me…and you had to make a choice, who got the goodbye…who would it be?” 

Elena took a deep breath. It seemed that it was time for the reason for the call anyway. She knew he was asking about more than just the goodbye. She needed to explain though. She couldn’t just tell him her choice without explaining herself. She felt her tears start to fall as she said, “I love him, Damon. He came into my life at a time when I needed someone and I fell for him instantly. He saved me in so many ways and I’ll always love him for that…”

“Hey, I get it. Stefan. It’s always gonna be Stefan,” he said in defeat. 

“Just let me finish, Damon. Please,” she sniffled, feeling horrible for hurting him like that, but she needed him to understand. 

“Go ahead,” he said sadly. He knew how it felt to just have to get the words out and he would listen, no matter how badly it ripped his heart out of his chest. At least hearing her voice in his last moments made up for it. 

“I owe him so much, Damon, and that’s why this decision was so hard. He made me glad to be alive at a time when I didn’t think that was possible but you…being with you consumes me, Damon. I just…couldn’t bring myself to hurt him. Not after everything…” she trailed off as her voice closed up and she tried to get herself under control. 

“What are you saying, Elena?” Damon asked, hope surging through him once more. 

“I-If it was just down to you and him who got the goodbye, it would be you, Damon,” she managed to say through her tears. “I love you, Damon and I’m sorry. I should have done this sooner, but now it’s too late and…”

“No, Elena,” Damon cut her off, closing his eyes against the wash of emotion as he sat down and leaned back against the coffin. “It’s not too late.”

“It is,” she sniffled. “Because I can’t say goodbye to you now. I just…Caroline has been my best friend for my whole life, and Tyler, and…”

“Hey, shh. It’s okay,” Damon said gently. “You’re saying goodbye now. As much as I would love nothing more than to hold you and kiss you and spend my last moments in your arms, just hearing your voice is enough. Hearing you say that you love me…I love you, Elena.” 

“I love you, Damon. And I wish I could be with you too,” she said heartbrokenly. 

Damon smiled as a single tear leaked from his eyes. “Don’t tell Stefan yet. Not unless he asks. Not unless we survive this.” He didn’t want his brother to feel the same pain that he’d felt when he thought she was choosing Stefan. He wanted his brother to die with the hope that he hadn’t been able to allow himself. At least not completely. He was intentionally not asking her if she only saying this because he was dying. The last time he had been dying she’d kissed him so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. 

“Okay. I won’t,” she promised.

Damon noticed Alaric coming back so he knew that he needed to end this call before things got ugly. No matter how much he would rather spend his last moments talking to her, it seemed he wasn’t going to get that chance. “Goodbye, Elena. I love you,” he whispered, taking what was probably his last chance to say those words. 

“I love you too, Damon. Always,” she whispered back as she hung up the phone, and wiped the tears that were consistently being replaced. 

Matt looked at her curiously, amazed that she actually chose Damon, and he had to ask the question that Damon had purposely avoided. “Did you just tell him that because he’s dying? Because you know if he survives…”

“I meant every word,” Elena said, leaning her head against the window and watching the scenery go by. “I know it’s crazy after everything he’s done, but I love him with every fiber of my being. I just can’t help it, and I don’t want to fight it anymore…Matt! Look out!”

Damon put his phone away as he got up to face Alaric. “I see you’re still pissed,” he quipped. “I take it goldilocks gave you the slip.” He didn’t think even facing the monster in his best friend’s body could bring down his mood right now. Even the beating he ended up taking couldn’t do that. He didn’t bother trying to fight back for most of it though, but when that stake was headed for his heart, he had to fight. Because on the off chance he survived the death of Klaus, he sure as hell wasn’t going to let Alaric be the thing that kept him away from Elena. 

When Alaric started to collapse he felt his insides turn to ice. No. This couldn’t be happening. The only way he could be dying was if Elena…he couldn’t even think it. Once he was definitely dead, he couldn’t deny the truth anymore. He reached for the white oak stake and turned it over in his hands a few times before he shook his head. He had to see for himself. Then he could consider what to do next. 

He barreled out of the storage facility and drove like a bat out of hell back to Mystic Falls. He rushed into the hospital, ignoring everyone. “Where is she?” he asked frantically, looking into every room he passed. 

“No, Damon, wait!” Doctor Fell rushed after him, but he wouldn’t stop until she stepped in front of him and put a hand to his chest. “You need to know, when Jeremy brought Elena in here earlier tonight, her injuries were worse than I let on,” she explained as fast as she could. “It wasn’t a concussion, it was a cerebral hemmorage. Bleeding on the brain.”

“What are you saying?” Damon asked confused and irritated. 

“He was so worried, I didn’t want to tell him but I…I helped her. She needed my help,” she said clearly, trying to get her point across without being blunt about it. 

“You what?” Damon asked angrily, despite the well of hope and relief that he felt. He knew that she didn’t want this. He’d made the mistake of trying to force it on her before, but that didn’t mean that some part of him wasn’t rejoicing just as much as the rest of him hated it with a passion. “Where is she?” he asked again, more firmly this time. Meredith just pointed to the morgue and he shoved past her, heading in that direction. 

When he slammed the door open, he immediately saw Stefan sitting by her side and he rushed over just as she opened her eyes and gasped for breath. Her wakefulness didn’t last long though before she was back out. “We need to take her home,” Damon said tightly. “She shouldn’t have to wake up here, like this.” Stefan nodded and went to talk to the doctor, leaving Damon alone with her for the moment and he stepped over and took her hand, pulling the cold flesh to his lips and pressing a kiss there.


	2. Chapter 2

Once they got her home, Damon got the whole story from Stefan and was beyond pissed at his brother. Only knowing how much it would hurt Elena kept him from ripping Stefan limb from limb. He just sat on the windowsill seething while they waited for her to wake up. Between what Stefan had done, his anger about this being forced on her, and his growing doubts about whether she had meant what she told him on the phone or had just been trying to let him die happy, his mood was about as bad as it got. So much so, that when Elena woke up, Stefan got to her first and he didn’t even try to worm his way in. 

It was probably better that way anyway. Assuming that she’d meant it when she chose him would just put her in a difficult position if she didn’t and that was the last thing she needed right now, so keeping his distance was a better idea. Elena woke up in a complete panic before she calmed down and noticed Stefan. “Hey. I’m right here,” he said gently. “You’ve been in and out for hours.” 

“Wh-what happened?” she asked, trying to catch her breath, as Damon tried to decide if he wanted to interject himself yet. 

“You were in an accident,” Stefan told her. 

Elena felt the memories rushing back. “Oh my god…Matt…is he…”

“Alive?” Damon couldn’t help but snark. “Ask Stefan. The hero.” 

Elena turned to look at Stefan hopefully who said, “He’s fine.”

Elena sighed with relief. “Thank you. I thought that I was…how did you…”

“Save you?” Damon finished for her. “He didn’t,” Damon said darkly sending a glare at his brother. 

Stefan was having trouble even looking at her. “When Jeremy brought you to the hospital before all this happened, your injuries were worse than anyone knew,” he explained. “Meredith Fell made a choice. She used Damon’s blood to heal you.”

“And when Rebekah ran Matt’s truck off the road, you had vampire blood in your system, Elena,” Damon said bluntly, knowing that ripping off the bandaid was the best way.

“Oh my god…D-does that mean that I…” It started to dawn on her what they were saying. “Am I dead?! No…no, no, no…th-that wasn’t supposed to happen!” 

“Maybe it doesn’t have to. I talked to Bonnie. She said she’s stronger than ever. There might be something she can do to help you,” Stefan said gently. 

“No the only thing that’s going to help is for you to feed and complete the transition,” Damon snapped. He’d told Stefan not to get her hopes up like this but Stefan never listened. 

“We have all day before she has to feed Damon. That’s a day to exhaust every possible way out of this,” Stefan argued. 

“There is no way out of it. We all know the drill. You feed or you die,” Damon said frustrated. “There is no door number three.”

Elena could see the pain in Damon’s eyes beneath all the anger and frustration, and that helped to keep her from completely freaking out. She took a few deep breaths for calm before looking straight at Damon. “Can I talk to you alone?” she asked hopefully. 

Stefan winced, but got up and left the room. “I’ll be downstairs.”

Damon wouldn’t look at her, waiting for the axe to fall and for her to tell him that she hadn’t meant any of it. “Damon,” she said softly, reaching a hand out towards him.

He couldn’t help but reach out and take it, moving to the bed to sit next to her. “Look, Elena, I get that I was dying and you were just trying to make it better for me, but you don’t have to…”

“Shut up, Damon,” she said with an almost smile and he did so and looked curiously at her. “That’s really what you think?” she asked sadly. At least it explained why he’d been sitting so far over there and barely looking at her. She could see his answer in his eyes even before he nodded, and she reached a hand to his cheek. “I meant every word, Damon,” she said gently. “I choose you. I love you.” 

Damon closed his eyes and leaned into her touch, wrapping his hand around her wrist to hold her hand there and running his thumb over the back of her hand. “And now you’re the one who’s going to die,” he breathed out heartbrokenly, not having any doubt what her choice was going to be here, and not willing to take it away from her again. “But at least I get to say goodbye,” he opened his tear-filled eyes and looked into hers. 

“You would let me?” she asked surprised and even a little hurt. 

“I tried to take your choice away from you before in this, and it’s one of my greatest regrets. I won’t make the same mistake again,” he admitted. 

“You don’t think Bonnie will find a solution,” she said honestly. 

“I know that Emily Bennett, one of the best and most learned witches of all times tried and failed and she had years to search for a way. I know that countless witches over the centuries have tried and failed. Strong or not, she doesn’t know nearly as much as them. The chances of her finding a way at all are slim to none, and in less than a day?”

“So feed or die then,” she sighed. She hoped that Bonnie found a way, but she wasn’t holding her breath. Not knowing all that. 

“I’m sorry, Elena,” he whispered. “I wish…”

“I know,” she breathed out. “You want me to complete the transition. You want me to be a vampire.” 

“I don’t want to lose you, Elena,” he told her. “I couldn’t survive losing you. Human or vampire I would love you just the same, but this isn’t my choice to make, no matter how much every bone in my body is screaming at me to shove some blood down your throat whether you want it or not.” 

Elena slid her hand from his cheek to the back of his neck and pulled him down to her. He went willingly and kissed her soft and slow. When it ended, he didn’t go far and leaned his head against hers, just breathing her in. “Thank you, Damon, for respecting my choice,” she whispered. “If Bonnie doesn’t find a solution by tonight, I’ll complete the transition.” 

Damon pulled back enough to look her in the eyes, hope shining in his own. “Are you sure?” When she nodded, he kissed her hard, happier than he could have imagined. “But you don’t want to be a vampire,” he reminded her. 

“Losing you would be worse. Besides, how many vampires have actually wanted it?” she asked wryly. He was right that she never wanted this, but part of that had been because Stefan never wanted her to be one. A lot of it had also been because of the examples she had. The eternally tortured Stefan and the psychopath Damon, but she could see the middle ground now. She still hated it. She would still much rather be human, but that wasn’t an option anymore. Now it was that or death, and as ready as she had been to die, she wasn’t going to waste her second chance. She could always die later if she hated it too much, but Damon would love her either way. She owed it to them both to at least try to make this work. 

“Okay then. And I do hope that Bonnie comes up with something, you know. For your sake. I just don’t think it’s possible,” he told her. 

“I know. But giving her a chance won’t hurt anything,” Elena told him, pressing one more kiss to his lips. “Right now though, I need to talk to Stefan. He needs to know…”

Damon sighed. “Yeah. I know,” he said as he sat back away from her. “You want me to send him up?” 

“If you would?” she asked. When he nodded and headed out, she got up to pace. 

The next person to enter her room though was her brother and she immediately pulled him into a hug. He didn’t believe her at all when she said she was okay, but when he said, “What could be more horrible than you turning into a vampire?” she couldn’t help but wince. She hadn’t realized that he hated them so much. She knew that vampire hating was a family tradition, but she hadn’t expected him to take it up. “Look, I need my sister. Not another one of them.” 

“I hope Bonnie finds a way, but if she doesn’t…” Jeremy just sighed and walked out, and Elena could feel the worry, anger, and sadness all warring within her as she walked over, pulled the shade off the lamp, and crushed the bulb in her fist before the flickering drove her insane.


	3. Chapter 3

Stefan came up and knocked on the doorframe before stepping into Elena’s room as she turned to look at him. Before she could say anything, he held up a hand to stop her. “I heard, Elena. You don’t have to say it.” 

Elena smiled sadly at him. While part of her was annoyed that he had been eavesdropping since she knew that they could only hear when they tried, the other part of her was relieved that she didn’t have to go through the whole thing. That didn’t mean that she had nothing to say. “I still want you to know something, though,” she said, stepping forward and taking both of his hands in hers. “You saved me, Stefan, and I don’t just mean from the car when I lost my parents. You gave me something to live for when I was at my lowest point. Part of me will always love you for that. Please know that.”

Stefan gave her a sad smile and nodded. “Just as part of me will always love you,” he said, pulling her into a hug that she gladly returned. Once he stepped back he told her, “You should know, Damon and I made a pact. Back when I first asked you to make a choice. Whoever you didn’t choose would move on. Find somewhere else to live and start a new life.”

“Stefan, no. See, this is what I was so afraid of,” Elena said, feeling the tears well up in her eyes. “I don’t want to lose you either.”

He reached a hand to her cheek, catching the tears as they fell. “It won’t be forever, Elena. Just for a while. So you two can find your way and figure out your relationship without me here to make things awkward.”

“You won’t…”

“And give me time to heal,” he added, realizing that she wouldn’t accept it any other way. 

Elena sighed sadly. “Okay. But not forever?” 

Stefan huffed a laugh. “Not forever,” he promised. “And I’ll still help you get through all this before I leave.” 

Elena smiled and pulled him into another hug. “Thank you, Stefan.” 

“Always, Elena,” he assured her as he hugged her back. “But for now I’m gonna go out for a while. Check in on Bonnie and stuff. I’ll be back a little later.” 

When Stefan left, Elena headed downstairs to find Damon making her a sandwich. “Sometimes human food can take the edge off the hunger during transition,” he told her. “But it won’t taste very good.” 

“Then why do you eat human food?” she asked curiously as she took a bite, trying not to gag at the taste. 

“It gets better,” Damon told her. “As long as you keep a healthy diet of blood, remember,” he reminded her of what he told her back in Atlanta. “Right now, you’re starving for blood so nothing else is going to do the trick.” 

She managed to get a few bites down before she couldn’t take anymore and pushed it away. They spent a little time talking about what she could expect if she went through with this, but then her strength started waning, so Damon helped her back upstairs so she could rest. He sat with her until she fell asleep before heading downstairs. 

Elena woke up to a crashing sound from downstairs and got up and headed down to see what was going on, trying to ignore her weakness. She gasped when she saw Damon surrounded with three guns pointed at him. “Elena, get down,” Damon snapped as he spun into motion. He sped behind the one facing the stairs to lessen her chances of getting caught in the crossfire, glad when he saw her hit the deck as the shooting started. Damon snapped the neck of the one he was holding and used him as a shield to get close to the others. The gunmen were down in seconds, and Damon slapped the stake out of the priests hands as he pinned him to the wall by his throat. “Don’t you know to never give a vampire a chance to fight back?” 

The smell of the blood in the room was too much for Elena and before she knew it, she was kneeling over one of the dead deputies and had her first taste of blood. She winced and doubled over as the fangs came out. She heard Damon tell the priest, “You know, if you had just left her out of it, I might have let you take me, but as soon as you told them to get her too, you signed your death warrant. You should have staked me when you had me off-guard.” 

“And you should have killed me before I had a chance to do this,” the priest said as he sprayed Damon in the face with vampire mace. Damon’s monologue had given him time to work it out of his pocket. 

Damon hit the ground yelling and writhing in pain as his face burned, and Elena, in full vampire mode now, seeing the man she loved on the floor like that being threatened, pounced. She sunk her teeth into the priests neck, knocking the mace out of his hand in the process. “Elena, don’t!” Damon cried out, working past his pain to get up and pull her away. The priest, still very much alive, fell to the floor and started reaching for his stake, but Damon let go of Elena long enough to snap his neck, before he was with her again as she fell apart. 

“Oh god. What have I done?” she cried brokenly. 

“You didn’t do anything, Elena. You just had a little drink is all,” he assured her. 

“I killed him,” she said in shock as Damon led her back up the stairs. Leaving would be a much better idea right now, but she was in no state for that at the moment. 

“No, you didn’t,” Damon said firmly. “I did.”

“Because of me,” she cried, clinging to him like a lifeline. 

“No, baby,” he said gently running a hand through her hair. “I was always going to kill him. He was a threat to all of us. A fanatic. He had to be stopped.” Truthfully, he wasn’t sure what he would have done with him at that point, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. He also wasn’t going to tell her that the priest would have died from the wounds she inflicted anyway. He’d had less than a minute to live if that by the time Damon killed him. 

“Th-then why did you stop me?” 

“Because you, Elena, are pure goodness. Your compassion is both your greatest strength and your greatest weakness. If you had killed him, the guilt would tear you apart even worse than it’s already doing. I won’t let you carry that burden,” he told her. He would carry as many deaths on his conscience as he had to if it kept her from carrying them. 

“Please, Damon. Don’t let me kill anyone,” she begged him. She felt badly enough for feeding on the priest. She didn’t even want to consider how she would feel if she killed someone. 

“I won’t, baby. I promise. I’ll teach you how to feed without killing. Without even hurting anyone. It’ll be okay.” And if someone cropped up in their path that needed to die, he would do it for her. They both froze as they heard the door opening downstairs, but Damon quickly relaxed. “It’s Liz and Meredith,” he told her. “You gonna be okay?” 

Elena took a few deep breaths, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Yeah. I will be.” 

“Okay. You wait here. I’ll handle this,” he told her, giving her a quick kiss before heading downstairs. 

“Damon, what the hell happened here?” Liz asked as she took in all the dead bodies. 

“They were going to take Elena too,” Damon told her. “I wasn’t about to let that happen.”

Liz sighed and shook her head. Even she knew that anyone threatening Elena in front of Damon wasn’t likely to survive. “Well now we have a mess on our hands. There isn’t enough time to get them out of here before people come looking for them.”


	4. Chapter 4

While Damon, Liz, and Meredith were downstairs discussing options, Elena stopped short as she turned around and saw Damon sitting on the window seat. “I thought you went downstairs…” 

“Nice pjs,” he said with a smirk. Elena gasped as she saw another version of herself, but didn’t quite get what was happening until he showed off her necklace and then kept it. He’d compelled her. And now that she was a vampire it was breaking. She looked towards her desk calendar to see when this had taken place and realized that it had been almost a year ago. She felt the tears welling up in her eyes at his speech about how much he loved her and watching his tears as he kissed her forehead made them fall. Only the fact that he had obviously been trying to do the right thing kept her from being mad at him for compelling her to forget and she could see how much it hurt him. 

She still hadn’t recovered from that one when another one hit her. How many times had he compelled her? She watched what was apparently their first meeting and smiled at the conversation. A love that consumed her, passion, adventure, and a little danger. He had given her all those things. The only complaint she had was the fact that there was a lot more danger than she would have liked, but the rest made up for it. At least somewhat. If she had remembered this all along, she might have chosen him from the start. There had definitely been a connection between them. She couldn’t blame him for this compulsion either. At the time they had just been strangers meeting in the night. There had been no reason for him not to. 

She was jolted out of the memories, by Damon coming back into the room. “We need your input on some decisions from here,” he told her. “…You okay?” 

“Yeah. Just a few compulsions breaking. How many times did you compel me?” she asked, wondering if there were more. 

“Just twice,” Damon said with a wince. “And as much as I would love to discuss it, we’re in a bit of a time crunch at the moment, so it’s going to have to wait.” 

“Okay. Right. Later. What’s going on?” she asked as she looked around at Liz and Meredith. 

Damon had decided that bringing them up was better than taking Elena back downstairs with all the blood and bodies. He did take the bag of blood that Meredith was offering and handed it to Elena who grimaced and started drinking as he explained. “We need to get out of here. And warn Jeremy and Stefan not to come back here,” he told her. “And we need to figure out what we’re going to do from there.”

“What are the options?” Elena asked. 

“We can try to take out the rest of the council, compel them if possible, even if it means locking them up to get the vervain out of their systems, but it might involve killing them. Once that’s done Liz and Carol can take back the town,” Damon told her. “The other option is for us to take off and become fugitives.” 

Elena took a few deep breaths, glad that she was being consulted, but she had a third suggestion. She looked at Liz. “If you had more time, could you take care of the problem without killing anyone?” 

“With enough time, sure, but we don’t have time right now. We’re sitting on a powderkeg that’s about to explode.”

Elena looked at Damon. “What if we take off for a while. Have a little vacation. Give them the time they need to take care of it without casualties, and then we can come back.” 

Damon looked to Liz for her opinion. “That could work, but there’s still a risk. I mean, I could try and scrub the systems of any mentions of you, but there’s no guarantee it would be possible at that point. They would have time to back things up.”

“It’s up to you, Elena, if you want to take that risk.”

“What about you? And Stefan? And even Jeremy? You’ll have to live with the consequences too,” she pointed out.

“We can keep Jeremy out of it,” Liz assured her. “A quick test to prove that he’s not a vampire, an alibi or two for the incident, and he’s in the clear.”

“And Stef and I have been fugutives before. It’s not that big of a deal for vampires. We’re good at staying under the radar. You’re the one that will have the toughest time, so you make the choice.”

Elena took a few deep breaths. “Vacation it is. It’s worth the risk to save lives.” 

“Okay then,” Damon agreed. “I’ll text Stefan to get Jeremy and meet us at the boarding house. At least we can get some goodbyes in.” 

“We’ll buy you as much time as we can,” Liz promised. 

“That’s the last place they would expect you to go, so we should be able to keep them looking elsewhere for a while,” Meredith told them. 

“Thank you both,” Elena said, hugging them tightly. Damon gave them grateful nods before taking Elena’s hand and pulling her to the window as they jumped down and headed for Damon’s car. He would have to change the plates and maybe a temporary paint job, but he didn’t want to leave it behind if they could avoid it. 

Jeremy, Stefan, and Bonnie were all waiting when they got to the boarding house. Elena grabbed Bonnie into a hug and told her, “You can stop looking. I fed. It’s too late now.” 

“What? Why? I thought you were going to give it until tonight?” Stefan asked worriedly. 

“That was until we were attacked,” Damon told them. “Which is why we’re here. All of us vampires need to get out of town for a while.”

“How long of a while?” Jeremy asked worriedly. 

“We don’t know, Jer,” Elena said sadly. “Hopefully just a few months. Maybe a year.”

“We need to give Liz, Carol, and Meredith time to get the fanatics back under control,” Damon explained. 

“I want to go with you,” Jeremy said hopefully. “I can’t lose my sister too. Not after everything.” 

“Even though I’m a vampire now?” Elena asked sadly. 

Jeremy pulled her into a hug. “Even then. I’m sorry about before. You’re still you, vampire or not and you’re all I have left.” 

“But you have school…”

“Which I’m failing anyway,” Jeremy pointed out. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll promise to study on the road and get my GED or go back to school and do better when we get back or something.” 

Elena looked at Damon who shrugged. “It’s cool with me.” 

“Okay. But we can’t go back to the house to get anything,” she told him. “It’s probably crawling with cops by now.” 

“That’s okay. We can buy anything we need new. It’s probably better that way anyway. We should dump our phones here too. Eventually they might try tracking them,” Damon told them before going to grab a pen and some paper. He wrote something down and handed it to Bonnie. “This is an untraceable anonymous email address I have set up. Get it to Liz, Carol, Meredith, and if you see her, Caroline, and anyone else you’re sure can be trusted. We can keep in contact that way.” 

“Caroline!” Elena remembered. “We have to warn her…”

“She already knows,” Stefan told her. “She was already on her way out of town when all this started.” 

“I’m gonna go pack up a few things,” Damon said. “You guys say your goodbyes, but we need to be on the road soon.” He ran up the stairs at vamp speed and threw some clothes in a bag, grabbing enough for Jeremy to borrow for a few days too until they could stop and get him some. He threw some of his favorite books in another bag, and grabbed a spare ring he had laying around for Bonnie to enchant for Elena for daywalking. He was just glad that the sun had already set by the time they had to bail out. 

He was back downstairs in less than five minutes and handed the ring to Bonnie. It only took her a few minutes to put the spell on it and she gave Elena one more crushing hug. “Take care of yourself, Elena. I’ll be in touch, and I hope you can come back soon.” 

“Me too,” Elena said with a sniffle. “I’ll miss you. With any luck I’ll be back in time to graduate. Assuming they let me make up the work.” 

“I’ll send you everything so you don’t have to rush to get it done if they do,” Bonnie promised as she stepped away. She had already said her goodbyes to Jeremy while Damon was upstairs. 

Damon put a hand on Bonnie’s shoulder. “You should be good, but if you need an alibi for all this, Liz can take care of it.” 

“Thanks, Damon,” Bonnie said, giving him a quick hug and the same for Stefan before she headed out. 

“I’m gonna split from you guys here,” Stefan told them. It would be easier that way. “I’m gonna head towards Portland.” 

Elena nodded, pulling him into a hug. “Take care of yourself, Stefan.”

“You too,” he told her, hugging her back before letting go and pulling Damon into a hug too. “Take care of them, Damon.” 

“I will, little brother. Be good,” Damon told him hugging him tightly. “We’ll see you again, yeah?” 

“Yeah. You will,” Stefan promised before grabbing his own bags that he already had packed and heading out. 

“We ready?” Damon asked Jeremy and Elena, who nodded, and they headed out to his car to hit the road.


End file.
